584 UETICACE^ — CANNABINACE^. 



tary, erect, suspended, albuminous or exalbuminous ; embryo straight, 

 axile; radicle superior (figs. 829, 830). — Herbs, shrubs, or under- 

 shrubs, with stipulate leaves, which are usually hispid or scabrous," 

 sometimes with stinging hairs ; juice watery. The plants of this order 

 are found both in temperate and in tropical regions. They belong 

 mainly to the latter. Weddell says that 8 species are common 

 to the Old and New World; 289 are natives of the former, and 187 

 of the latter. The Malayan Peninsula and Archipelago have the 

 greatest number of species ; then come Madagascar, the proximate 

 African islands, Peru, and Bolivia, New Grenada and Ecuador. There 

 is a greater abundance on islands than on continents. Genera, 43 ; 

 species, about 500. Examples — Urtica, Boehmeria, Parietaria. 



There are 3 species of British nettles, Urtica dioica, U. urens, and 

 U. piluUfera. The last has capitate female flowers, hence its specific 

 name. Various species of Urtica, Nettle, such as U. dioica, wens, 

 piluUfera, stimulans, wrentissima, and Laportea, crenulata of Northern 

 India, have stinging hairs (fig. 91, p. 34). The' young shoots of the 

 common nettle are sometimes used like spinach or greens. Urtica 

 cannahi7ia and tenacissima furnish fibres fit for cordage. Bceh/meria 

 nivea supplies fibre for the Chinese grass-cloth, and the Eheea fibre 

 of Assam ; and Boihmeria Buy a gives the Pooah or Puya fibre of Nepaul 

 and Sikkim. In Nettles and PeUitories the elastic filaments turn 

 the anthers back with elasticity, and cause the scattering of the 

 pollen (p. 283). Specimens of tree-nettle were measured by Back- 

 house in Australia, and found to be 18, 20, and 21 feet in circum- 

 ference. Their sting is very severe, causing violent inflammation. 

 According to Mr. Macarthur, the stem of a specimen of Urtica 

 {Laportea^ gigas, in Australia, was 42 feet in circumference at a 

 foot from the ground. The stem in some cases gradually tapered up- 

 wards, without a branch, to 120 or 140 feet, the trunk then dividing 

 into a regularly-formed wide-spreading head. 



Order 164. — Oannabinace.«), the Hemp and Hop Family. (Apet. 

 Diclin.) Flowers dioecious, males in racemes or panicles. Perianth 

 herbaceous, 5-sepalous"; aestivation imbricate. Stamens 5, opposite 

 the sepals; filaments erect and filiform; anthers dehiscing longi- 

 tudinally. Female flowers in a strobilus or glomerulus ; perianth 

 formed by a bract enclosing the ovary. Ovary 1-celled ; style ter- 

 minal or 0; stigmas 2;. ovules solitary, pendulous; fruit; indehis- 

 ceift, seed suspended ; embryo exalbuminous, hooked or spiral, coty- 

 ledons incumbent, radicle superior. — Herbaceous plants, sometimes 

 twining, with watery juice, scabrous, stipulate, usually opposite and 

 often glandular leaves. The plants have been long cultivated. They 

 occur chiefly in northern temperate regions. Genera, 2 ; species, 3. 

 Examples — Cannabis, Humulus. 



Cannabis sativa, an annual herbaceous plant, native of Western 



